The Social Science Computing Cooperative has developed over the past 23 years to provide research computing services to agencies and departments in the social sciences on the Madison campus. The Founding Member of the Coop was the Center for Demography and Ecology. The Department of Sociology and the Department of Rural Sociology joined together as sustaining members in 1984 with the Institute on Aging joining later in the same year. The Institute for Research on Poverty joined in 1989 and the Social Systems Research Institute (SSRI) joined in 1996. The Wisconsin Center for Education Research joined in 2002 and the The Center for Demography of Health and Aging in 2003, with the most recent member being the School of Education in 2008. The Coop also serves the Applied Population Laboratory, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, the Havens Center for the Study of Social Structure and Social Change, National Survey of Families and Households, the Study of American Families, the University of Wisconsin Survey Center, and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, although they are not sustaining members.

Since 2006 the SSCC has provided instructional computing support for the faculty, staff, and students in the Social Science division of the College of Letters and Science. This was the result of a merge of the Social Science Microcomputing Lab into SSCC.

The Coop is supported by sustaining member organizations and their individual members. Components of the Coop's costs are paid directly by member organizations and their individual members. There is no fee-for-service charge. Thus, the Coop is the creature of its sustaining member organizations.

The Chairs and Directors of those organizations meet annually to review the expenses of the previous year, to consider the Coop's expenditure plan for the coming year and to undertake their part of its support. The admission of new organizations to the coop requires a unanimous vote of this group. An organization may leave the coop at will but must give six months' notice.

Policy guidance and oversight of the Coop is provided by a Steering Committee made up of faculty representatives of the sustaining member organizations appointed by the Dean of Letters and Science on the recommendation of the relevant Chairs and Directors. Steering Committee members are appointed for a three-year term. The steering committee recommends one of its members to the dean as Chair of the Coop. The Chair is in charge of routine oversight of the Coop and is supervisor of the Coop's staff. The current members of the SSCC Steering Committee include:

Ted Gerber (Chair), Center for Demography and Ecology
Christine Schwartz, Department of Sociology
Carol Ryff, Institute on Aging
Pat Brown , Institute for Research on Poverty
Salvador Navarro, Social Systems Research Institute
Doug Harris, School of Education
Chris Thorn, Wisconsin Center for Education Research
Robert Hauser, The Center for Demography of Health and Aging
Christine Schwartz, Instructional Support for College of Letters and Science

More Information on:

• SSCC Infrastructure
• SSCC Staff
• SSCC Policies